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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie Filling

A sweet filling made from pumpkin, milk, sugar, eggs, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie Filling

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Bake the pumpkin in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until soft.

  2. Remove the inside and press it through a strainer.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the pumpkin pulp, milk, sugar, beaten eggs, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and molasses. Mix well until smooth.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk and body of the filling, along with its flavour and colour.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling structure and a firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the filling set smoothly.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the spices.
Dark molasses
Adds depth, colour and a caramel-like sweetness.

The step that matters

Pressing the pumpkin through a strainer. Pumpkin left coarse or watery makes a grainy, loose filling. Pressing it smooth removes fibres and excess liquid, so the eggs can set into an even, silky custard.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, ginger, cinnamon, molasses):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, ginger, cinnamon, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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